5 Tips For Building Your First Website

When you’re just starting out in your practice as a health, wellness, or fitness professional, you might wonder if you really need a website. Maybe you’re under the assumption that you need to make a certain level of income or reach a specific milestone before you launch a website. But, the truth is, even if you don’t think you’re quite “there” yet, a website is one of the first tools you should consider in your marketing efforts. Think about all of the questions you receive from your students, clients, and even friends who are curious about what you’re offering. You might be surprised by the time it will save you to have a website to direct them to. As you begin to plan and build your first website for your health, wellness, or fitness practice, we offer you these five tips to make the experience productive and enjoyable:

Define your goal. Like any new project, it’s always wise to have a goal in mind. This objective will guide your decisions and help keep your website’s purpose clear. Ask yourself what you want to achieve: Do you want a platform to share your knowledge and passion? Do you want people to book in-person sessions with you? Would you like to gradually increase your online presence and following? These are all good questions to ponder as you define the goal of your website. Also, creating a website is a great exercise to help you reflect on your vision and mission.

Look for inspiration. Find websites that are in the same or similar industry as you. Then, consider which websites inspire you most. What do you love about these sites? Is the information clear, interesting, and educational? Do they use compelling images? Is the navigation clean and easy? Looking for inspiration (without copying) from your favorite sites can be useful way to plan your own unique website.

Keep it simple. Especially in today’s online culture, our attention spans are shorter than ever so it’s wise to keep your website clean, simple, and easy to navigate. When considering what to include in your biography or what’s usually an ‘About Me’ section, tell visitors why you love to offer yoga classes, personal training, coaching sessions, or whatever you’re passionate about! Don’t overthink it and keep in mind the audience you’re trying to reach.

Use high-quality, authentic images. A good picture says a thousand words but that doesn’t mean you have to spend a thousand dollars on new headshots or photos. Recruit a friend, your partner, or anyone else that supports you, and ask if they could help you take some new photos for your website. Make sure your photos showcase your true, authentic self. For example, if you are someone who loves hanging out in handstand, then by all means, take a picture of your handstand. But, if you’re not, then don’t! Your photos should be an invitation for potential students and clients to get to know who you are.

Build your website with SEO in mind. Even if tech isn’t exactly your forte, there are non-technical steps you can take to improve your website’s visibility. Include a blog on your website and write relevant, consistent content that will help rank you higher in the search engine results. Sharing your link on other websites including your social media pages will also help the ranking of your site. Take a look at our recent blog post with more tips on how to level up your SEO game.

If the idea of building a website still makes you sweat, allow us to help you do some of the heavy lifting! With OfferingTree, you can build a free website, set up a blog, and list your offerings – all in the matter of minutes. We also recently announced the new Public Benefit Plan and for just $15 / month you can access even more features like a custom domain, unlimited custom pages, and ability to add video, audio, and more.

We’ve heard from OfferingTree users who admit they were initially hesitant to build a website but now that they see how easy it is, they’re having fun with all of the possibilities! This brings us to our final, bonus tip for building your first website: Have fun! If you have fun and remember why you do what you do, then it’ll show in your website. We’d love to help you get started with building your first website. Come find us at offeringtree.com or if you have questions or feedback, send us a note to: hello@offeringtree.com.